fofkdszk

My previous article on playing games at your wedding reception received such an overwhelming response that I have decided to put more fun ideas out there for spicing up your event.

The following games need little preparation.

Dollar Bill Poker

The object of the game is to get the best "poker" hand from the 8 digit serial number on a dollar bill. Start by giving each of your guests a 1 dollar bill. The person at the table with the best "hand" in the serial number wins the centerpiece. For example if the serial number is 10601464, this guest has 4 pairs. You will need to modify the scoring a bit from real poker. Here is a suggestion for scoring from lowest to highest -

and so on

Pass the Garter and Bouquet

Here is a variation of seeing which female guest will wed next and which guy will dance with her at this wedding. It's a variation of the party games "hot potato" and "musical chairs". Form two concentric circles - one for women; one for men. Let the men be in the outer circle and the women form the inner circle.

Now, give one man the garter and give one woman the bouquet. Start the music. The men pass the garter to the left and the women pass the bouquet to the right. Stop the music. When the music stops, the person holding the respective item is "out" and they will leave the circles. Before they sit down, the garter/bouquet is given to the person to the left (men) or right (women) of the "out" person and the game continues.

Ideally, if there are the same number of men and women at the beginning of the game, the game keeps going until 1 person has a garter and 1 person has a bouquet. If the circles are uneven, then the game stops when there is only one man and he holds the garter OR one woman and she hold the bouquet. This couple, by virtue of each holding the special wedding item, then needs to dance a slow dance together.

The following games require more preparation before the Wedding day.

Match the Baby Pictures to the Bridal Party

(This will be more fun for a larger bridal party.) Before the wedding day, everyone in the bridal party submits a baby photo and a fairly current photo of themselves. These will be taped to a bulletin board or easel at the wedding reception. The baby photos are labeled A, B, C, etc; the adult photos are labeled 1, 2, 3, etc

Each guest is given a piece of paper and a pencil and needs to best try to guess the correct pairs of photos by writing letter number pairs (e.g. A - 6; B - 3, etc) The winning guest can be rewarded in one of the following ways - Drum roll please -

They win a prize that can be themed appropriately for the wedding

They must dance the Macarena or the Chicken dance alone (this is best used as a "surprise" prize)

They just get a round of applause

Wedding Day Bingo

Use a custom bingo card program you can find on the internet to create bingo cards, a call sheet and bingo pieces. Depending on the program, you can have cards with pictures that fit your wedding theme such as a Hawaiian or Fantasy theme. Or, you can use a word list or photos showing the likes/dislikes of the bride and groom. Some programs will allow you to replace the word "BINGO" with another 5 letter combination such as "GOWED" or "IUWED".

Then hand out a card and the appropriate number of markers to each of your guests. Give the call sheet and bingo pieces to a designated caller. The caller puts the pieces in an appropriate lidded container, shakes them up, chooses and calls out one at a time and carefully marks the call sheet. The first guest to get Bingo and yell "Wedding!" wins.

As with any game with prizes, if you are having more than one "bingo" game at your reception, you should give out themed prizes to each winner. If there will only be one game and one winner, then you can give a "surprise" prize which may actually be a "jokes-on-them" kind of reward.

Copyright 2007 by Mindy Makuta. Mindy and her husband own a small resort in Lyons, Colorado where they host outdoor weddings and family reunions. For more ideas, see Wedding Reception Games on her web-site which covers topics of concern for before, during and after the wedding. They also publish http://www.168colorado.com, a site that helps plan Colorado vacations, including referrals for where to stay and what to do when you get there.

posted by gektal  # 5:46 AM